RESTORE’s Happy Thanksgiving
On Thursday, November 19th RESTORE and Tuesday, November 24th, RESTORE gave out 230 Thanksgiving dinners to families from the greater Riverview community. In addition to our normal USDA grocery bag, each family received a Thanksgiving turkey, ham, or whole chicken, as well as a bag of Thanksgiving fixings (including stuffing, gravy cranberry sauce, yams, potatoes, and green beans) and other dessert, bakery and produce items of their choice.
This distribution would not have been possible with out the support of the following organizations:
- Save-A-Lot grocery store who provided us with 50 holiday bags full of Thanksgiving fixings and a low price for turkeys.
- South Shore United Methodist Church who brought us two truckloads full of Thanksgiving goodies and also provided financial support.
- ECHO South Shore who provided us with food items that they could not distribute.
- Rice Creek Mobile Home Park who provided us with both financial support and food items.
- Generous contributors from our church and community, including an unexpected gift of $500 from a single donor.
RESTORE continues to distribute groceries to between 100 and 120 families each week throughout the pandemic. Many people have lost their jobs and are having to choose between putting food on the table and paying their rent, mortgage, or utilities. RESTORE continues to be an important resource for many families in our community.
After Thanksgiving, our normal Tuesday grocery distribution will be supplemented by a hot meal program provided by our Metropolitan Ministry partnership. Since we can’t provide seating in our Fellowship Hall for this program, hot meals are served in stryrofoam take-out containers to our clients. And we distribute produce, eggs, dairy and other items from Feeding Tampa Bay as well as unsold pizzas from our local Pizza Hut on Thursday mornings.
We want to thank all of our contributors and volunteers for allowing us to meet the food needs of the many struggling families in our community.
Noisy Offering Sunday
Sunday, November 29th was a fifth Sunday of the month—a Sunday in which we routinely collect a “noisy offering” for the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home in Enterprise, Florida. Last week, despite a small in-service attendance, we collected more than $80 for the Children’s Home. We have collected over $250 in Children’s Home donations for the month, and more than $1800 for the year.
The Alafia Boat Parade
Has Been Cancelled
Due to the increasing COVID-19 infections occurring throughout Hillsborough County, the Rotary Club of FishHawk-Riverview has cancelled the Alafia Lighted Boat Parade event this year. Although RUMC was looking forward to hosting a viewing center for the parade on our parsonage’s backyard, we understand the precautionary step taken by the Rotary club.
On the Lookout for Advent Families
We are on the lookout for families to help us celebrate the advent season. Families would be involved in lighting advent candles at the beginning of the service during each Sunday during advent, and on Christmas Eve. If you are interested in participating in this fun way, contact the church office.
We Are Welcoming
Everyone Back
We are welcoming our entire congregation back to church. We have been supporting live Sunday morning services for three months now. Each week, we are welcoming more and more worshippers back to our 10:30 AM service in our sanctuary. To date, our in-person experience has been quite good, and no worshipper has yet tested positive for COVID. Our efforts to conduct safe services have so far been blessed by God.
Based upon that experience, we have restarted our 8 AM service in Crichton Fellowship Hall, followed by the Gleaners Adult Sunday School class at 9 AM.
We continue to follow the extensive safety guidelines set forth by the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Social distancing has been strictly observed, with seating on an “every other pew” basis. All persons entering the sanctuary are required to wear a mask and to submit to a temperature check. Congregational singing is still not permitted as we attempt to limit spray from one person to another. However, we do provide praise song videos during the services so that people can appreciate the music as well as the latest news, prayers and messages.
We welcome and encourage all those you feel confident in participating in worship during this continuing pandemic. We hope to welcome many long-time and new congregants during the Sundays ahead.
If you still don’t feel confident is these days of pandemic, we are currently Live Streaming our 10:30 AM Sunday worship service every week. You can see worship as it is actually happening by connecting to our YouTube Channel "RUMC Live".
Our “Virtual Church” Continues
We continue to gather virtually using the ZOOM application on our computers or smart phones. We are using ZOOM to conduct many of our scheduled leadership meetings, and a weekly Wednesday Evening Bible Study on Wednesday at 6:30 PM.
On the website, as always, you will also see a link that will allow you to send in your tithes and offerings electronically; if you prefer to send your tithes and offerings by mail, please send them to:
Riverview First United Methodist Church
8002 U. S. Highway 301 South
Riverview, FL 33578
Remember–God loves you, and so do we!
Pastor Louis Telcy
Care Committee
Worship Committee
Online Giving at RUMC
Giving online is easy and allows you to set up automatic recurring contributions and view your complete online giving history from anywhere you have access to the Internet. Or you can enter one-time contributions from the internet or by smart phone.
To get started, simply follow these easy steps:
- Click on the Online Giving button below. This will take you to our church’s online giving webpage.
- Click on our Create Profile button on that webpage.
- Follow the onscreen instructions to create an online profile and to schedule your recurring or one-time contributions.
Rev. Louis Telcy, Pastor
Here at RUMC, it is our mission to win people to Jesus Christ; to train believers to become growing disciples; and, to send disciples to impact our community and world for Jesus Christ.
Early Service, Sunday 8:00 AM, Fellowship Hall
Regular Service, Sunday 10:30 AM,
Sanctuary
8002 U. S. Highway 301 South, Riverview, FL 33578 813-677-5995
Download the December, 2020
Bell Newsletter from this link.
Bible Passage of the Week
Advice to the Rich
Tell people who are rich at this time not to become egotistical and not to place their hope on their finances, which are uncertain. Instead, they need to hope in God, who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. Tell them to do good, to be rich in the good things they do, to be generous, and to share with others. When they do these things, they will save a treasure for themselves that is a good foundation for the future. That way they can take hold of what is truly life.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 (CEB)
Upcoming Church Events
Sunday, December 6
Second Sunday of Advent. Sanctuary, 10:30 AM.
Thursday, December 24
Christmas Eve Service. Sanctuary, 7:00 PM
